Frostbite
by FiercesomestDefenestrator
Summary: In which Yang flirts mercilessly and Weiss is more savage than the blizzard they are taking shelter from. Oneshot, brought to you from a time we almost attempted freezerburn.


**A/N** : **Hey all! This is Fiercesomest here with a relic from the distant, distant past. Apparently Defenestrator and I wrote this back in 2016, sometime between (or in the middle of) Road to Recovery and Search.**

 **She has almost no recollection of this fic. I can't remember what we were even going for. Probably we were just having fun (as usual).**

 **In any case, it could be that we recognized this wasn't our best work, or possibly we had too much snow going on in Search and Destroy at the same time. However! I recently found the file for it in my RWBY folder and we figured this RWBY-episode-less Saturday before Christmas was as good a time as any for it to be brought out into the light of day.**

 **We finished this up before the end of Volume 3 if I recall, so prepare yourself for a very cheerful Yang and a particularly prickly Weiss.**

* * *

The wind howled through the gap between the door and the frame. Weiss rammed it with her shoulder again, gaining the last few inches she needed from the frozen, rusted hinges. Gasping from the cold, she forced her way into the frozen room. Snow whirled in after her as she stumbled inside, ice clinging in her hair and at the collar of her coat. Her sword's narrow blade scraped on the concrete floor as she scrambled to regain her footing.

She braced herself at the door frame, shielding her face from the stinging ice crystals as she shouted into the blinding, roaring white of the storm, "In here!"

A wild snow-blinded tumble of blonde brawler crashed straight into her seconds later, taking them both to the floor in a heap. Yang rolled up and to her feet in one smooth arc, shouldering the door shut with a heavy grunt. She noticed only after the incoming flow of snow from the storm ceased that part of the pile of white on the floor was actually a living, breathing, and likely livid heiress.

Weiss coughed and sputtered, struggling up out of the drift of powder along the wall. "Do you always run in the middle of a blizzard? When you can't see?"

Myrtenaster cast a pale blue glow along the icy cinder block walls of their shelter. Chunks were missing here and there, exposing the blocks' hollow centers, but the air was still. No drafts. Probably all the gaps were filled with the snow and ice of previous storms.

"Well _excuse_ me for sprinting towards that beautiful voice of yours," Yang shook snow from her hair before helping Weiss to her feet, "Maybe if you weren't wearing, you know, _all white_ I'd actually be able to see you wander off."

"You were supposed to be right behind me!" Weiss pulled her hand free and clenched her gloved fists at her sides. They were a white, waterproof synthetic material, similar to her coat and leggings. The Schnee crest stood out, a flawless white against the grayish, off-white material across the middle of her back. Her boots crunched softly in the thin layer of snow on the floor as she paced, using Myrtenaster's light to inspect the room, "Do you still have our gear?"

"I uh," Yang's hands flew to her back, searching. Her face revealed her answer before her hands revealed a single brown pack. "Well, uh, I... seem to have mine?"

"You have yours and not mine?" Weiss whirled to face her and saw it was true. She ran her hand over her face, "Oh you've got to be kidding. We're going to be stuck here till this storm is over, and you lost half of our supplies."

"What you mean is, I managed to _save_ half of our supplies," Yang flashed a smile and slung the pack back over her shoulder, letting her eyes trace the boarded up windows. "So much for a simple mission, huh?" She ran a hand through her hair, that same smile painted over underlying worry, "You think Ruby and Blake will try to find us once we don't make the rendezvous point?"

"Not if they have any sense," A brief mental image of Ruby and her red cape barreling straight out into the blinding snow flashed through Weiss's head. She sighed, shoulders slumping, "Well, Blake has sense. They'll at least wait till morning. Which means we may as well set up camp."

"Yeah... yeah may as well. This place seems pretty sturdy at least!" A friendly knock of Yang's fist against the wall dislodged a cascade of dirt and snow from the ceiling... and also a beam or two of wood that she pointedly ignored as they crashed to the ground. "...Uh, so, I've got this!" The brawler flipped her pack around and pulled out a dark brown bundle of tightly rolled fabric that she handed to Weiss. "You can use it, since I lost yours and all."

Weiss, recovering from the heart-attack of watching Yang almost cave in what looked to be a wood-braced concrete ceiling, looked at the bedroll and shook her head, "No... no it wasn't your fault," she heaved another sigh, "I should have managed my own supplies."

"Aw c'mon, I insist!" Yang took the bedroll back and gave it a little flourish, unrolling it with a dramatic snap. The sad brown fabric was worn at best, tattered in some places, and not much thicker than a common blanket - not that Yang usually needed much insulation when she slept. She swung it in an arc and draped it around Weiss's shoulders like a cape. "There. You look warmer already."

Weiss shook the fabric off of Myrtenaster so her sword's glow could more effectively light the room. She lifted the edge of the blanket, glaring, "Yang. Do you honestly think this keeps anyone but you warm?"

Yang stared back for a moment. "...Nope. But hey, better than nothing right? Speaking of which," She pulled a handful of energy bars from the depths of her bag, "May I present to you... dinner!"

The edge of Weiss's mouth quirked. "That's... not a terrible idea."

She pulled the sleeping bag from her shoulders, folding it in half and spreading it on a clear patch of concrete so they could sit down at least somewhat comfortably.

Yang flopped down on one corner of the fabric, opposite Weiss. She fanned the energy bars out like a deck of cards. "Pick a flavor, any flavor. We've got blueberry, peanut butter, chocolate... uh, kale? I think that one's from Ren... oh, here you go, this one's perfect for you." Teeth showing in a wide grin, the brawler handed Weiss the lemon-flavored bar, packaged in blinding yellow.

"Lemon?" Weiss frowned, not touching the bar, "Why lemon?"

Yang's grin slipped a bit, a curious look flicking across her face for a second before settling into a far less mischievous smile. "You know, I was gonna say it's 'cause you can be so sour, but all things considered you're actually bein' kind of sweet today. So maybe the blueberry instead? It matches your eyes." The brawler had made the comparison up on a whim, but as she held the blueberry bar next to Weiss's face, she was amazed at just how closely the light blue packaging actually mirrored those ice blue eyes staring back at her.

Weiss blinked, breaking... whatever that look was. "I'm not 'sweet'. And you're acting strange," she plucked the energy bar from Yang's hand, "Maybe you should get some sleep."

"Pfft, I'll sleep when I'm sleepy," Yang said around a mouthful of the kale bar. Her face twisted a bit at the... unique flavor, but she soldiered through it. "Anyway what's so strange about sharing food with a friend, hm?"

Upon her swift defeat of the kale bar, Yang started on the chocolate energy bar, making a small sound of delight - it was far less green, and far closer to being delicious. It didn't really taste like chocolate per say, there was always an odd aftertaste to these things, but there was at least a hint of something that was probably supposed to be chocolate-y... sort of. "Want to try some of this one?"

Gloves and cold hands made it hard for Weiss to get hers open, and she'd just managed to do it when it registered: had Yang called her a friend? Not that she wasn't. Of course they were friends, and teammates. And… she could smell the chocolate even in the frozen air. Her gaze flickered from Yang to the energy bar and back. "... I suppose we could share."

She broke off a piece of her bar so they could make an equal exchange.

"Sweet deal," Yang took the offer and popped the dark blue chunk into her mouth. "Mmmm, oh yeah, that's _berry_ good." Snickering, the blonde broke off a little over half of hers, and held it out for Weiss.

"Please never say that again."

"Yeah, I really set the _bar_ with that one, huh?" Yang's grin just about doubled in size.

Weiss broke off a small piece of Yang's energy bar to match the piece she'd given her. She handed the rest back.

"Hey c'mon I already ate a whole one of these things," Yang spoke through a mouthful, hands held up and refusing the return of what she'd given as she finished up her half, "You gotta help me out here."

"Why?" Weiss raised a brow as she took small bites of energy bar, "These are supposed to be rations for three days, you know."

Yang stared in bewilderment. "Seriously Weiss? This," she motioned to the wrappers and two remaining bars, "would last you three days?"

"I'm not saying it would be ideal," Weiss lowered her bar, going into lecture mode, "They're _emergency_ rations. They have all the nutritional requirements we need, plus enough calories to function at a base rate for seventy-two hours. Well, they do if you eat two per day," she looked at the collection of bars and wrappers again, "Did you only pack five?"

At this, Yang snorted, throwing the heiress a playfully affronted look. "Weiss." She said nothing further, simply reaching for her pack and upending its contents. Ten more energy bars clattered to the ground between them, the brightly colored wrappers forming a scattered rainbow of nutrition.

Weiss stared at the collection, dumbfounded. She looked at Yang, then she looked back at the energy bars spread on the blanket, "You packed twelve- _thousand_ calories worth of emergency rations for a three day mission."

Yang hesitated, unable to keep a straight face no matter how hard she tried. How many puns would Weiss let her get away with in one night? One more? Just one more... "Yeah well, you know how it is, my semblance _burns_ calories like crazy."

A pun. Another pun. Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. This was going to be a long night. "Let's just try to get some rest. We'll find the others when the storm clears up."

Outside, the wind howled. Myrtenaster's light cast shadows behind the collapsed beams.

Yang nodded, scooping her energy bars back into her bag and setting it aside. "You finish that then," she gestured to Weiss's half-eaten food, "and I'll set us up something nice." She stood then, brushing the crumbs from her clothes, emitting a soft glow of her own as she left the diffused light of Weiss's blade to begin her search.

Loath to follow such parental instructions but hungry all the same, Weiss took another bite of her energy bar, listening in the dark while Yang... shifted rocks around? Weiss deadpanned, "Please don't cause a cave in."

"I mean, I know I'm all about bringing the house down, but uh, don't you need to be in a cave for it to be a cave in?" Yang's voice carried from the farthest corner of the area.

"Cave ins involve tons of rock collapsing on whatever idiotic souls happen to be present beneath them," Weiss lifted Myrtenaster and pulled Yang's unoccupied side of the blanket over her lap to try to keep warm. She glanced at the ceiling, "I think concrete and ice are close enough substitutes to qualify."

Yang laughed, "Idiotic souls huh?" She emphasized the plural s, "You counting yourself too?" Her playful jab was soon followed by more shuffling rocks and a muffled, "Oooh that's a nice one."

"You must be joking. As soon as I hear the slightest crack, I plan on braving the blizzard," Weiss said and finished the last neat bite of her energy bar. She flattened the wrapper and slipped it into the pocket of Yang's pack. "What are you even doing?"

Yang didn't answer immediately, but she reappeared in Myrtenaster's circle of light before long, arms filled with chunks of rock. Oddly shaped as they were, a few of them slipped from her arms and thudded to the ground when she sat down. "Isn't it obvious? I'm gonna warm you up~" the rock-leaden brawler leaned forward as she spoke, eyebrows dancing indecently over a smarmy smile.

Weiss leaned away with a look of disgust, "Excuse me?"

"I'm gonna warm you up," Yang repeated, her delivery lacking any traces of innuendo this time around, "with these!" Spine straightening with pride, the brawler let the rocks fall into a small heap in and around her lap.

"Not everyone produces literal flames after experiencing blunt trauma," Weiss eyed the rocks with a great deal of apprehension, subtly shifting so she could call up a shield glyph on the off chance Yang had a strange case of altitude sickness or something, "So if the 'plan' is to throw them at me till I'm warm, don't. I'm definitely not that cold."

Yang gasped, putting her hands to her face in shock. "How did you guess?" Keeping up her charade was clearly not a priority, as she snorted and laughed a second later. "Yeah, no. But actually that's a great idea - er, reversed I mean?" The brawler rubbed the back of her head, looking sheepish, "Fighting our way out of that Ursa den kinda left me drained so uh... I was going to ask you to punch me, but maybe it would be easier to throw a rock at me?"

Weiss looked at the rocks. She looked at Yang. One eyebrow rose, "You want me to hit you with a rock?"

"Yup!" The edges of Yang's lips curled dangerously close to a smirk. "I mean, unless that's too hard for you."

"Of course it's not too hard!" Weiss huffed, crossing her arms and facing away to hide the fact that despite her bluster it was very cold. Her legs were freezing through the blanket on the concrete and ice floor, "I don't want to actually hurt you, though."

"Aww, Weiss that's so sweet! I always knew deep down you cared~" Yang put her hands to her heart, genuine warmth in her smile, but mischief in her eyes.

"You don't have to care about someone to not throw rocks at them," the heiress pointed out, glancing over her shoulder to make sure nothing suspicious was happening.

"Ouch," the brawler snickered, "You know if you weren't so obtuse, you'd be pretty... acute!" After cracking up at her own joke, Yang sighed and picked through the rocks in her lap. "Just kidding, you're super cute as is," she held a potato sized rock out for Weiss, "Seriously though I'll be fine. Ruby does it all the time."

"So you do this in secret? Because never in my entire history of knowing either of you have I seen her purposefully hit you with a chunk of concrete," Weiss peeled her hand away from where she'd slapped it over her eyes, "Why don't you just do it yourself?"

"Ffffiiiinnnneee, I'll do it myself," Yang deflated, her bubbly enthusiasm viciously popped into submission by Weiss's endless prickles. "It's not as fun though," she moped, practically pouting at this point. It was all for show of course, and after a bit of searching, she found the perfect rock - vaguely square shaped, smooth, and roughly the size of one of those personal ice cream tubs she caught Blake with on occasion.

"This'll work." Without warning, she casually tossed it straight up into the air, placing her hands upon her knees and bracing both herself and her aura. The rock nearly brushed the ceiling before coming straight back down, miraculously hitting its mark - its solid collision with Yang's head resounding in a hard _crack_ that cut straight through the howling winds of the storm outside.

The brawler flinched on impact, eyes widening for a fraction of a second before rolling back into her head and shutting altogether as she slumped forward over her own lap.

Weiss leapt to her feet, abandoning the thin blanket and dragging the rock off of Yang's head, "What on earth is wrong with you, you _idiot._ " When silence was Yang's only response, Weiss brushed her gloves off on her coat and bent over Yang's head, smoothing her hair and looking for blood. "Can you hear me?" The brawler's blonde curls radiated a gentle warmth, and while a few locks slipped over her shoulder, nudged out of place by Weiss's touch, she remained otherwise motionless.

"Great," Weiss grumbled, reaching for the discarded blanket. She folded it and tried to guide Yang to lay her head on it like a pillow. She sat close to take advantage of her teammate's warmth. "If you're still unconscious when the storm lets up, I'm leaving you behind."

Yang snorted, erupting in breathless giggles. One amethyst eye opened, peering up a Weiss with unrestrained mirth. "Gotcha."

Weiss (after almost having a heart attack, thinking Yang was choking on her own spit or something) yanked the blanket out from under her head and threw it in her face.

The giggles erupted into full-on laughter, and Yang pushed herself up into a sitting position as best she could while doubled over in fits of amusement. "Oh my _god_ Weiss, you should have seen your face," she wheezed, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye she pulled the blanket from her head and happily wrapped it around the heiress's shoulders. "I'm ranking that one right between Blake's utter nonchalance, and Pyrrha's horrified certainty that she'd killed me."

"I _will_ kill you if you do that again," Weiss flailed to get the blanket off and hurl it at Yang again, "It's not funny."

"Aw Weiss, you were really worried, huh?" Yang couldn't help but tease, but Ruby and Blake had warned her about the dangers of excessive teasing, so she didn't push further, pulling the blanket off her head yet again to better look Weiss in the eyes. "I'm... sorry," Yang said, and meant. "It worked though!" she spoke again before things could get awkward, sitting back and letting the energy accumulated from the blow flare up in a wild burst of heat.

It took a second or two to wrestle it down into a more controlled, level expenditure, during which the light behind the brawler's grin shifted from mischief to something closer to excitement. Fairly well charged from the blow, she picked up the scattered rocks and put them back into her lap. _Like a dragon building a nest of eggs,_ Ruby had said to her once. The image had stuck with her ever since. "Now I can make you some hotrocks."

Weiss looked from the rocks to Yang. She was going to transfer heat to the rocks, so they could keep warm? "Isn't that inefficient?"

Yang shrugged. "I'm just one person, so I figured I'd heat a few of these up to keep you warm on all sides! I mean, unless you're cool with being little spoon. Because I'm totally fine with that, too."

Weiss opened her mouth and shut it again, her face going red. "We could just share the blanket."

The brawler bit her lip, hoping she could play off her own rising tinge of red as a side-effect of her semblance. She casually picked up the blanket in question and fiddled with one of its corners. "We could," and she was very tempted to leave it at just that, "...But I'm gonna level with you Weiss."

Yang threw furtive glances left and right, then leaned forward, acting for all the world as though she was about to reveal the secrets of the universe. "I dunno how much Ruby or Blake have told you but... I apparently do this _thing_ when I sleep, where I, y'know, hug stuff. Whatever's closest. Pillows. Puppies. _Princesses._ "

Weiss's brow rose, "I'm pretty sure everyone saw you almost strangle Zwei when you were napping last week."

Yang held her hands up. "Hey, _he_ came to _me_. He knew what he was getting into."

"I guess I do too," Weiss heaved a sigh and turned to sit against the wall side-by-side with Yang, who really was quite warm. She shifted Myrtenaster in her grip, and snatched up the blanket with her free hand, "Just be aware, I will hurt you if you grab me and don't let go."

While that seemed perfectly fair, the brawler nevertheless leaned into Weiss and fired up her most powerful weapon - puppy dog eyes - aiming them squarely at her icy companion. "Okay but, are we really gonna sleep propped up against a cold wall?"

"As opposed to lying on the cold floor?" the synthetic outer shell of Weiss's coat scraped on the concrete as she leaned away, "Or a pile of rocks?"

"Honestly? Either of those options sound better than waking up with a back stiffer than concrete."

"Fine," Weiss threw up her arms. Yang having a stiff back was not something she wanted to deal with. "We can lie down, but we're lying back to back."

"Awesome! Back to back though? I mean, that sounds kind of inefficient, but okay," Yang teased, daring to push her luck. She cranked her semblance a bit, trying to entice the heiress, but also trying to heat the rocks in her lap faster.

"If I get cold, I could always hit you with another rock," Weiss deadpanned as she pulled the ends of her scarf from her coat and unwound it. Heat rolled off Yang, who was dressed in her regular combat outfit despite the sub-freezing temperatures-heat that Weiss did not need to be in close physical contact to experience. She noticed some of the stones in Yang's lap start to glow, "Are you still heating those?"

Once her eyes finished rolling, Yang picked up one of the rocks and turned it over in her hands.

"Yup." Staring down at the stones soaking up her heat, the brawler looked distant for a moment, lost in another place and another time. She returned shortly, glancing at Weiss. "They're pretty much done, though."

Warmth radiated from the pile of stones. It was a gentle warmth, almost like sitting near a campfire that had burned down to embers. Weiss drew her knees up, crossing her arms over them, "What are they for?"

Yang squinted, "They're like... like batteries! Rocks can hold a lot of heat, you know? Keep you warm an entire night. I used to make these for Ruby whenever it was cold and I knew I'd be out late..." the brawler ran a hand through her hair, a nervous tick she'd never been able to break. "She was actually the one who figured out I could make 'em in the first place." Yang's head tilted back and hit the wall behind them with a resigned _thump,_ her eyes flicking to one of the boarded up windows and the raging storm outside. "...I hope she's okay."

Weiss left off trying to figure how well a piece of concrete would hold the heat and whether it would actually be warm all night. Yang's smile had slipped some. Weiss scoffed gently,

"Ruby's fine. Even if she and Blake were stranded like us, she _wears_ her blanket. Plus she carries enough red dust rounds to incinerate an office building." They'd been a birthday present to her team leader she had (surprisingly) not come to regret. Not yet anyway.

"Yeah - yeah I guess that's true." Taking a deep breath and nodding Yang pushed herself off the wall and set about placing the heated stones in a line, a barrier against the cold for the side of Weiss she wouldn't be pressed against. "Also they have... each other..." the brawler gasped, dramatically dropping the last stone from her hand in shock, "What if they are stranded like us? Staving off the cold together-" she clutched her hands to her heart, "Weiss, what if they are cuddling _without me?_ "

Weiss crossed her arms, glaring at Yang, "We are not cuddling."

After a short beat, Yang moved her hands from her chest and squinted at them as though something was missing. "You're _right._ " Another beat, and she looked to Weiss. "We could easily fix that, though~" her words took on a melodic quality as she spread her arms, an open invitation, offering the scowling heiress her most winning smile.

"You're incorrigible," Weiss swatted at Yang's arm, fighting a smirk. "Seriously, let's go to sleep."

"All right, all right," Yang laughed, edging the final rock she'd dropped into place with her foot, completing a relatively straight line parallel to the wall they were sitting against. She nudged Weiss with her elbow and motioned to the heated stones. "Scoot on over then, I'll take the wall-side."

"Hmph," Weiss complied, setting Myrtenaster next to her just outside the ring of stones. The stones themselves were warm, and between them and Yang she was actually quite comfortable. For being stranded in a blizzard and sleeping on a concrete floor, anyway. She edged closer to the rocks at her side, asking Yang, "Do you have enough room?"

"Yup," Yang stretched out on her back on the ground beside Weiss. There was barely an inch between them, but the heiress should have at least a little space once she rolled to face the wall. With a brief glance at Weiss, Yang reached for her pack and shoved it right up against Weiss's head. "Here. It's kinda lumpy, but I bet it'll make a better pillow than concrete."

"You should use it. I've got this," Weiss propped herself up a bit and plucked at the edge of the scarf she'd folded up and placed behind her head. She shook her hair to get it off the white fabric so Yang could see it better in the low light.

The wind howled and moaned outside their makeshift ice cave. There wouldn't be a need to keep watch- not even Grimm would be on the move out in that kind of storm. Weiss's fingertips just touched Myrtenaster's hilt, using her aura and a small bit of activated blue Dust to keep up the soft glow, "Ready for lights out?"

"Ready if you are," Yang winked, nudging the small of Weiss's back with her elbow before rolling onto her side. Some of the energy bars in her pack poked at her skull badly enough that she gave up on using it, and instead used her arm, but only after checking one last time to ensure Ember Celica was fully loaded and ready to go in case of an emergency. Pressing her forehead against the wall, she whispered, "Night."

"Good night," Weiss reached to pull the ragged blanket up over the two of them. Without her contact, Myrtenaster's glow faded, giving way to frozen blackness.

Weiss dozed, but when the row of stones lost its warmth, she woke up shivering.

Beside her, Yang was dead to the world, lulled to sleep by the sounds of the storm outside. Though, as excellent as the brawler was at sleeping in general, she was downright terrible at sleeping on her side without something to hold, so she had already started shifting, leaning farther and farther away from the wall.

Cold and muzzy with sleep as she was, Weiss refused to roll over and take advantage of Yang's unnaturally high body temperature. She did, however, edge backwards a little. They'd lie back to back, is all. That would be warm enough.

The level of contact was minimal, the lightest of brushes, but that was all it ever took. The second Weiss's back touched Yang's, the slumbering brawler's subconscious reacted, setting her in motion. She twisted in her sleep like a sprung trap, shifting in a single fluid motion that ended with her flush against Weiss's back, one arm snaking securely around the shivering heiress and holding tight.

Weiss went from zero to awake in two seconds flat, tensing up so hard she could almost have snapped. She took a breath to shriek at Yang, but then paused. Yang was... well, she was very warm, and in the dark she could tell from her slow, even breathing and that she was still asleep.

Weiss shifted a little so Yang's chin wasn't pressing into the top of her head. The warmth of Yang's arm around her brought back that sleepy, heavy feeling, and she released her breath in a long sigh. If there'd been any light, she would have seen it mist in the air. The wind outside still howled.

"Just this once," the fencer mumbled as Yang's heat chased her shivers away.

Maybe being the little spoon wasn't such a terrible thing.

Plus she could always yell at her in the morning.

With that final consolation, Weiss snuggled in for the rest of the night.

Closer to morning, the blizzard finally died down, its vicious howls and driving snow replaced by a low mournful wind flecked with bright melodies from the occasional songbird to greet the rising sun, and the approaching calls of two huntresses in training trying to find their partners.

It would take much more than that to wake Yang Xiao Long, though, the girl who had routinely slept through raging blizzards much like this one during winters at home in Patch. No, it would take something more, like a beam of morning light streaking right across her face when the door to their shelter was painstakingly inched open. Squinting against the blinding intrusion into her slumber, Yang cracked an eye open, bleary with sleep.

"Ruby! Over here! I found a way in!" Blake's voice caught Yang's attention, pulling her from her attempts to go back to sleep.

Weiss groaned, shifting in Yang's arms as she tried to rub her eyes.

"Is it stuck?" The crunch of boots in the snow broke the quiet almost as much as Blake's words. "Push on three! One, two..."

"Three!" Blake's voice preceded a low, shuddering scrape of wood on wood as she and Ruby forced the door's frozen hinges to bend to their wishes.

While that single beam of light had been bad enough, the torrential flood of daylight that now seared across Yang's vision was just plain cruel and unusual punishment. Groaning, the brawler tried to escape, burying her face in the soft white head of hair beneath her chin... and froze. Eyes snapping open, Yang drew back an inch or two to get a better look at what was most definitely a barely-awake Weiss Schnee curled up in her arms, pressed as close as possible, legs entwined with hers, holding a fistful of her jacket, and _when on earth had they shifted to be facing each other?!_

Of course, all things considered, Yang was actually quite comfortable. Weiss fit against her wonderfully, and everything would have been absolutely peachy... if it weren't for Blake suddenly looming over them, amber eyes flashing with curiosity. Add to that the fact that Weiss was starting to wake, and would probably kill her soon. And oh _fantastic_ , now Ruby was heading towards them and Yang knew she needed to hurry up and say something, _anything,_ before Blake's gaze burned straight through her skull -

"This is only kind of what it looks like."

In lieu of a verbal response, a slow, devilish smirk lit up Blake's face, and Yang knew she would never live this down. On the plus side, neither would Weiss.

Speaking of Weiss, the heiress gave a long sigh and pushed herself up, squinting in the sunlight from the open door. She stared up at Blake and Ruby, and then down at Yang. At Yang, whose legs she was still tangled in, halfway under the blankets. She, Weiss Schnee, had slept in Yang's arms on the icy concrete floor…

... and it had been the best night's rest she'd gotten in months. She felt recharged to the point of cheerfulness. Weiss extricated herself from her teammate as if nothing untoward had even happened, asking the others, "I don't suppose you brought us breakfast? Those emergency rations leave something to be desired."

Ruby, seeing that Yang wasn't about to get flayed for the sleeping arrangements, exchanged a grin with Blake and plucked at the collar of her red cloak, "Well, they've got hot chocolate back at our rendezvous point."

Not quite sure how she had somehow dodged the bullet of all bullets, but one hundred percent not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, Yang jumped to her feet and held a hand out to help Weiss up. "That sounds so much better than more energy bars and melted snow."

Weiss looked up from dusting off and tucking her folded scarf into her pocket and saw Yang's hand.

"Though technically energy bars would be more nutritious," she accepted the hand and stood briskly, releasing her grip at once and brushing snow from her coat, "I agree that hot chocolate sounds wonderful. Shall we go?"

"Yeah!" Ruby cheered. The leader was rarely averse to sparing a few minutes for team bonding time. She led the way to the door, snow crunching beneath her combat boots. "So tell us what happened. Where's your bag?"

"Well, it... was kind of a long night," Weiss resisted the urge to glance at Yang.

Yang fell into step beside Blake after having grabbed her pack, only to find the Faunus smirking at her something fierce.

"A long night, hm?"

"Oh my _god_ Blake," unfamiliar with being on the receiving end of teasing, Yang lit up, bright red, for once not because of her semblance, "It wasn't like _that._ Weiss, tell them!"

After a night of puns (not to mention that stunt with the rock), Weiss found seeing Yang of all people blush intensely satisfying and decided to make good of this advantage while she had it.

"Oh please," the fencer scoffed loftily as she crossed the floor following after Ruby, "It's not my problem if Blake wants to be jealous. I will, however, spare everyone the details of your repeated solicitations."

" _Solicit_ \- those were _not_ -" Yang spluttered, her voice jumping an entire octave.

"Making advances on other girls when I have my back turned, hm?" Blake's smirk stretched to reveal a few teeth, and Yang distinctly saw a threat- no- a _promise_ of payback flash in her partner's bright amber eyes.

Rather than stick around to find out what exactly that payback might entail, Yang Xiao Long, huntress in training, who once took down an entire den of Ursa Majors with her fists and some fury, laughed nervously, turned tail, and _fled._ She dashed out into the snow, calling over her shoulder, "C'mon sis, I'll race you to the hot chocolate!"

Weiss had to make way as the brawler barreled past her through the doorway.

"I was joking, of course," she said to Blake, who really did show an alarming number of teeth in her smirk.

Blake watched Weiss in utter silence for a few moments... then cracked up, unable to stifle her laughter. Relief at finding Weiss and Yang unharmed left little room for things like jealousy. "I figured," she said once she recovered, fixing the heiress with a knowing look, "She's comfortable though, isn't she? Hard to resist. You should join our team cuddle piles sometime. Very relaxing." Flashing a sly smile at Weiss, Blake jogged past her and Ruby to chase down her fleeing partner.

"I'll pass," Weiss called after her. She sighed, glad to have avoided most of the teasing. "Cuddle piles. Honestly."

... of course, there were 'cuddle piles', and then there were long, cold nights spent on two person watch. Thanks to recent events, Weiss definitely knew who to volunteer with. A hint of color crept up her collar at the thought and a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. With that, she straightened the cuffs of her coat sleeves and stepped out into the sunlight after the rest of her team, ready both for breakfast and for any other adventures the coming mission held.

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, the ships that didn't sail.**

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 **'Till next time,**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


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